The Dog (21 page)

Eventually she returned home to Beijing, but within a month he was sent away to May 7 Cadre School in Guangdong. He never questioned why they hadn't been sent away at the same time, but Lan Baiyu wasn't content to sit quietly by, and she lodged complaint upon complaint with the Commune Committee until they gave way to the Revolutionary Committee, which wanted no trouble, and kicked her right up to the section secretary.

For Lan Baiyu's troubles, the section secretary had her assigned to teach at the newly established Nanjing Technical University, a thousand kilometers away. By the time Comrade Zhou's reeducation in the countryside was complete and he'd returned to Beijing, she'd been in Nanjing for three months. They wrote yet more letters, though the Iron Man was by then out of print. She came back to Beijing for National Day, the Spring Festival, and he went to Nanjing for New Year's. In total, they saw each other thirteen days that year. Seven the next. Eight the next. When he was made director of the Glass Institute, Zhou began lobbying to have her transferred back to Beijing. It took another two years, but finally in 1975 she was assigned a post at the Academy of Sciences.

By then they'd given up hope of having a child. They shared meals, spoke kindly to each other, tended to the household, and at night they lay down to bed.

They'd had two years together before Zhou was assigned to Task One. Since Lan Baiyu had been admitted to the hospital he'd missed only one Monday, and on the last morning, after he'd left, she mustered her strength and shuffled to the window, where she put her hands on the cold sill to steady herself. She looked down five stories, a satellite view of her husband walking his bicycle out to the street. He pushed off, threw his leg over the seat, and rode away. She would have recognized him in a crowd of thousands. He had an unusually formal posture on the bicycle, as though astride a stallion in a parade, his legs working up and down in a controlled, martial rhythm. She laughed. Ridiculous man, out in the freezing weather on a bicycle when, given the importance of his task, he could have had a private car ferry him to his meeting, the hospital, anywhere. But that was her husband. He adhered to his routines. He'd ridden his Flying Pigeon to the first meeting at Office Nine. Therefore, he'd ride it to every meeting. As he turned onto the street, she craned her neck to see him through the veiny tree branches, and then lost him as he rode south, beyond the window frame. She wished she'd been able to come up with a solution to his problem, but by then it was difficult for her to remember her own name.

When Zhou and Gu's train arrived in Shanghai, they were met by representatives of the 133 factory. Zhou was eager to see the induction furnace, but the 133 director was evasive. He insisted they tour the facility before there be any discussion of progress on Task One.

It was, Zhou thought, an impressive facility, full of cutting-edge technology. A vascular system of pipes clogged the rafters and delivered silicon tetrachloride, hydrogen, and oxygen to every part of the factory. Almost the entire working floor had been given over to Task One. The walls were plastered with “Learn from Daqing” posters depicting square-jawed peasants with glaring white teeth and broad shoulders, model oil-field workers. Zhou complimented the director on his factory's political orientation, and received a shrug in reply. “We serve the people,” the director said.

“They've still got the revolutionary spirit down here,” Zhou whispered to Gu.

“They haven't been failing as long as we have,” Gu said.

After a look at the ventilation system, the director clapped his hands and said, “That's it. We have a banquet prepared in your honor.”

“Where's the induction furnace?” Zhou said.

“Perhaps we can speak about that after the banquet,” the director said.

“Better to confront obstacles ceaselessly,” Zhou said.

The director tugged on the hem of his coat, straightening the fabric. He stood tall, as if delivering a message to Mao himself. “We have retired the induction furnace.”

Zhou nodded. Whatever schadenfreude Zhou might have felt was eclipsed by the knowledge that if the 133, clearly a more advanced facility, hadn't been able to improve on the work done at the 505, there was little hope for Task One.

“If the experiments were conducted according to protocols and didn't achieve the expected outcome, that was no fault of yours. This is a task unlike any we've ever confronted,” Zhou said.

“Yes, comrade. Our tests produced substandard synthetic crystal. I had hoped to give you better news.”

“Testing continues,” Zhou said.

“Tomorrow we'll visit the brickworks,” the director said. “Our comrades there have attacked the problem with great force, but their success has been limited.”

“Who?” Zhou said.

“The Shaseng Brickworks,” the director said. “They were experimenting with a modified furnace and managed to make some nice little pieces of glass before the whole thing blew up.”

“The brickworks?”

“The furnace. We'll have a full tour tomorrow. Many members of the municipal government are eager to meet you tonight, comrades.”

“They produced good crystal at the brickworks?” Zhou asked.

“Small samples.”

“Comrades,” said Gu, “perhaps our food could be allowed to go cold in the name of Task One?”

The director winced and looked at his watch. “Fine, fine. Let's go. I envy your revolutionary spirit, comrade.”

The director of the 133 called for his car to come around and meet them. It was a short ride to the brickworks, a sprawling gray building overlooking a stagnant canal overgrown with algae. Pylons of brick were stacked around the perimeter, and clusters of chimneys chugged out white smoke. The director led Zhou and Gu through the arched front doors and across the floor to a corner of the factory where some workers were tinkering with a tangle of pipes, canisters, and blackened, shredded metal.

“Comrades,” the director said. “This is the modified casting furnace I mentioned.”

Only one of the workers looked up to acknowledge them.

“Comrade,” the director said in Shanghainese, “here are Comrade Zhou Yuqing and Gu Yasheng from the Beijing 505. They're interested in your experiment.”

The worker wiped his brow with his forearm, leaving behind a greasy brown streak. “They interested in explosions?”

“They're interested in the product of your experiments,” the director said.

“Then they must be from a bomb-making unit,” the worker said. He was smiling crookedly at them. He didn't have many teeth, though he looked to be only about twenty-five years old.

“Comrade, they have traveled from Beijing in service of the motherland,” said the director.

The worker's smile dried up. He looked at Zhou and Gu, then reached over to a table stacked with tools and shards of red and yellow brick, plunged his hand into a sack, and pulled out a clear lump of unpolished crystal, which he handed to Zhou. It was substantial, slightly bigger than his fist.

“Have you tested this for purity?” Zhou asked the director, who relayed his question in Shanghainese.

“Didn't need to,” the worker said. “The special filter was cooking silicon dust pure to six nines.”

“It's pure to six nines,” the director said to Zhou.

“Why didn't anyone report this to Office Nine?” Zhou said.

“It's not even big enough to qualify as a test blank,” the director said. “You've made blanks twice this size. Why would we bother Beijing with something so insignificant? You might also note that the furnace blew up.”

“You know why it exploded?” Zhou asked.

“A weak valve,” said the director. “They built the furnace from spare parts.”

“We've never once achieved six nines,” Comrade Zhou said. “Not even at this size. We can't defeat the annealing problems.”

Gu had drifted over to a slab of glass, about knee height, leaning against a wall.

“Comrade,” Gu called out. “Who produced this?”

“That thing's a disaster,” the director said. “Don't bother with that.”

Gu waved Zhou over. “Look at what these clever brickworkers have done.”

The two men crouched down to examine the slab. It was made up of about twenty smaller cubes of quartz, each welded to the other by a seam of molten quartz, a glass quilt. The welding was a mess, and it was still radiating enough heat to cook a pig.

“If the cubes are cast small enough, they won't need much time in the annealing furnace,” Zhou said. “You can make the welds clean?”

Gu grunted. “Am I not a proud worker of the 505 special crystal workshop?”

“When did you make this?” Zhou said.

The director turned to the worker and spoke to him quietly. “Last week,” the director said. “But no one could stay at it for very long. It was just too hot. Plus, it's impossible to lay down clean welds. They had their best welders going at it but, without intending any disrespect to them, look at it. A terrible disaster.”

Gu was inspecting the slab, his nose so close he could smell the heat. He rose slowly, bracing himself on Zhou's shoulder, and walked back to the worktable, where he picked up the lump of raw crystal. He spat on it, rubbed it against his pant leg, and held it up to a dangling lightbulb. Perfect clarity.

“How did you do this?” Gu said.

“Wei Lun there designed the filter,” the director said, pointing at a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the blackened hulk of the furnace.

“Can he build another one?” Zhou said.

“If he has materials.”

“Can he build twenty?”

The director of the Shanghai 133 looked at the exploded furnace. “Yes, comrade,” he said.

“You'll need to rebuild that thing, as well,” Zhou said.

*   *   *

Before leaving Shanghai, Zhou found a fishing boat willing to take him out to Big Gold Mountain Island, a journey of about an hour. Gu went along without asking what Zhou had in his satchel, just as he hadn't asked what was in the box Zhou had kept on his lap the entire train ride from Beijing.

When they reached the island, the fisherman barely registered surprise when his passengers declined his offer to slide up on the beach so they could walk around. There was no point in trying to understand what went on inside the heads of northerners, and he silently swung the bow around and headed back to Shanghai. The mast creaked as the sail filled with wind, and the hull slapped at the waves. As the island receded, Zhou pulled the wooden box from his satchel and opened it. Gu spoke softly to the fisherman, and they both trained their eyes on the shore, affording Zhou a moment's peace. Lan Baiyu's ashes swirled out and lay down on the choppy water where as a girl she'd dived from the gunwales of her father's fishing boat.

*   *   *

When they returned to Beijing, Comrade Zhou immediately reported the breakthrough to Office Nine.

“The problem has been solved?” Vice Mayor Li said, his eyes wide.

“We are near to a solution, comrade,” Zhou said.

“Near?”

“Variables remain,” Zhou said.

“How did brickworkers achieve victory where our country's best glassworkers failed?” Li said.

“I do not know, Comrade Vice Mayor.”

“Brickworkers.”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Coffin construction will be completed on time, then?” Li asked.

“We are dedicated to the task,” Zhou answered.

Vice Mayor Li ordered Zhou to begin producing crystal cubes as soon as the new filters were fitted to the furnaces. He sent word to the Shanghai 133 and the Shaseng Brickworks to begin production of crystal cubes as soon as their furnaces were ready. A special airlift operation would transport the completed cubes to Beijing. Once enough cubes were available, Gu Yasheng's welding team would begin welding together the five slabs needed to construct the coffin.

“Comrade Zhou,” the vice mayor said.

“Yes?”

“We are out of time.”

“Correct, Vice Mayor.”

“Complete Task One and cease all failure.”

“Understood, Vice Mayor.”

Zhou ordered the workshop sealed tight. Windows were caulked shut and special clean passages were built outside the doors to trap dust. The floors were to be kept wet at all times to cut down on silicon dust. Workers from the Shaseng Brickworks arrived the next day to construct special filters and install them on the casting furnaces.

The workers of the 505 attacked with renewed fervor to produce perfect cubes of crystal. Only because “The Internationale” blared through the loudspeakers did they know another day had ended. When “The East Is Red” played, they knew the sun had risen again. They ate when food was placed in front of them. They slept when Comrade Zhou told them to. Comrade Gu's welding team was made ready.

The first quartz blanks came out of the furnace in cylinders thick as a thigh, and the workers sliced them like sausages, then ground the segments into twenty-centimeter squares. Immediately they could see a noticeable difference, an increased clarity, a smoothness deep within the glass. The filters had worked.

After achieving grade-one polishing, the grinding technicians inserted the squares into welding brackets. The welders shot white-orange spears of flame at any surface imperfections, melting out craters, releasing trapped gas, and patching the hole with melted quartz from a slender rod the size of a straw. Even in protective gear, no one could work on the cubes for more than a couple of minutes at a time, so hot was the quartz.

On June 6, Gu's team finished cleaning the first batch of cubes. They arranged them in clamps that held them within tenths of millimeters of each other. The squares were still baking at a thousand degrees Celsius, as hot as napalm. The flame of Gu's torch, about twenty-two hundred degrees.

Everyone gathered to watch as he climbed into his proximity suit, acquired from the Ministry of Aerospace, designed to protect firefighters at launch pad explosions. Layered in asbestos and coated in aluminum, the silver suit made a sharp, crackling sound, like the cellulose on a package of cigarettes. Its hood was the shape of a barrel. The visor was impregnated with gold, but couldn't protect against arc eye, so Gu wore welding goggles underneath. He'd been practicing in the top half of the bulky suit, welding crickets from scrap metal, and even in the unwieldy gloves he moved gracefully, clicking the striker only once to light his torch, adjusting the flow nozzle with ease.